DAVID MURDOCK: Three kittens

Sunday

Aug 4, 2013 at 12:01 AM

According to our popular folklore, we are all either dog people or cat people. One or the other, with no variation. Even Winston Churchill supposedly chimed in with an opinion: “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

By David MurdockSpecial to The Times

According to our popular folklore, we are all either dog people or cat people. One or the other, with no variation. Even Winston Churchill supposedly chimed in with an opinion: “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”Although I respect most of what Churchill said, I disagree here. Dogs certainly look up to us — that’s true. My experience with cats, however, differs from Churchill’s. Every cat I’ve ever owned didn’t give any indication of judgment. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but my cats seem friendly and loving.As for pigs, I am fond of them, too, but mostly in their sausage, bacon, chop or barbecue form. I’d never have a pig for a pet, no matter how I thought he might regard me. Whether or not one is a dog person or cat person supposedly says something about our outlook on life, which seems a vast oversimplification. True enough, dogs, as a whole, are absurdly optimistic. Cats, as a whole, strike me as almost luridly pessimistic. Still, I don’t think that says anything about the pet owner.Whether or not a person’s choice of pet says something about their personality is an open question. Our personality is shown more by how we perceive our pets, I think, than what we choose for pets.For example, I prefer cats as pets. With the exception of the litter box issue, cats are less trouble. I like dogs well enough, but I see dogs more as outside animals. To me, dogs are colleagues — they have solid, understandable jobs. They watch, they hunt, they herd. A cat’s job is somewhat more ambiguous. Sure, they hunt vermin. Every farm needs a barn cat or three. The old folks believed that cats also protected their humans from the unseen dangers. When a cat suddenly hisses and arches its back for no apparent reason, the old folks thought that the cat had spotted either a ghost or an evil spirit and was running it out of the house.Some of the old folks went a step further. Speaking of his cat Jeoffry, the poet Christopher Smart explained his job: “For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the Adversary. / For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. / For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.” “Keeping the Lord’s watch in the night” makes perfect sense to me; it explains a lot of my cat’s behavior.Cats do very little just to be doing it. They have a reason for everything they do, even if humans don’t understand that reason. They may appear to be playing, for instance, but they’re really in training. Last weekend, I watched three little kittens “in training” to be good barn cats.I was standing outside my church waiting for Sunday School to start. Next door, three little kittens spotted me. They looked to be about eight weeks old or so. One was a “sort of” calico, one was gray and white, and one was tan and white. As soon as they saw me, I became a target.You really have to admire a cat’s spirit. These three little kittens, maybe 15 pounds total weight, acted as if they thought they could bring down a 6-foot-4, 260-pound man. Like confident boxers, the weight difference daunted them not at all.Allow me to digress slightly into English teacher mode — a group of cats is properly called a “clowder” or a “glaring.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “clowder” means “crowd, heap, cluster.” There is no equivalent definition of “glaring,” but it’s commonsense enough to not need one.In any clowder of cats, there is always a clear leader. The leader of the cats stalking me was obvious from the glare I got from him. His head dropped low as he slinked through the grass, followed by his two comrades flanking him to either side. All six eyes were fixed on me, glaring through the blades of grass as they stealthily approached. Had I been a mouse, I would have been terrified into inaction. Luckily for my personal safety, I’m not.I probably offended these three kittens’ dignity. Instead of cowering in fear at their fierce and awesome display of stalking prowess, I got so tickled at them I laughed. It’s hard to be intimidating when your target thinks you’re cute. My laugh sent them into confusion. They scattered and ran back to their house.They’ll improve their hunting skills, though. Those three little kittens could take down a mouse right now, but they’ve got a ways to go before they can keep the Lord’s watch in the night. Keep training little fellows — you have a “grown-up cat” job to do one day.

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